Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini Francesca, I’m pleased to say, is doing very well indeed. This doesn’t come as a massive surprise to me, though, given that my main inspiration for including it on the original list was my forthcoming trip to see a production of it at London’s Opera Holland Park, with none other than Australia’s Own Cheryl Barker and Julian Gavin as Francesca and Paolo. I’ll admit that seeing it live shook my faith in the piece temporarily — the libretto is not the strongest, though perhaps OHP’s Mike Volpe would beg to differ! — but after three shows, I was more or less converted. Italian verismo has never been the corner of the repertoire closest to my heart, even when brewed with other operatic influences, as Francesca is; but it has some fairly wonderful moments and I still recommend getting to know it. The small Francesca discography welcomed a new recording into the fold in April this year, with the release on Myto of a 1958 performance from Rome; and if you’re in the right place at the right time, staged performances are remarkably easy to find for such a non-standard work. Along with OHP’s production, 2010 saw stagings in…

A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire. Flash mobs are a recent social phenomenon. Some might say they go hand in hand with the fairly fatuous “planking” craze. Both have arisen from the ability to share something easily via technology – an act so seemingly random that it becomes entertainment. From mass public pillow fights to “silent discos” (participants on the London Underground synced their portable music devices and silently danced for the unexpected viewing pleasure of bemused commuters), flash mobs have taken a variety of forms, but I would argue that they have an ability to serve a greater purpose. In particular I’ve taken an interest in the way classical music has been used in this context. It fits the bill perfectly; something that is widely perceived to belong in a concert hall, usually performed with a sense of formality to audiences who pay good money. Many people view classical music as a luxury. Taking it away from the revered theatres to the general public, free of charge and…

So now, a year on, I thought it would be interesting to see what’s been happening to my rarities since I featured them — what’s been performed, what’s been recorded and what’s been (understandably or not) neglected. Here’s the first part of a two part series. You can read the original piece here. Vivaldi: Ottone in villa Vivaldi’s first opera (and such a pretty one) has had just two staged performances in the past year, in August of 2010 at the Innsbruck Festival. This German review has some choice photos of the punk-baroque production, which featured a nice line-up of singers: Veronica Cangemi, Sonia Prina, Sunhae Im. (This opera is all about female voices. There’s a tenor in it, somewhere, who barely gets to open his mouth.) Prina, Cangemi and conductor Giovanni Antonini had also been involved, in May last year, in a concert presentation of Ottone in Krakow, and the same ensemble headed into the Naïve studio, to add this opera to their Vivaldi Edition. The gorgeous Roberta Invernizzi also features, as does young coloratura phenomenon (she’s only 21) Julia Lezhneva, whose disc of Rossini arias I’ve just reviewed for Limelight. Meanwhile, Brilliant Classics last year issued a 2008 recording…

Beautiful, passionate, neurotic, satirical… Just a few words I’ve seen used to describe this work, each movement with its own distinctive character and charm. Best of all, whether you’re an experienced lover of chamber music or someone with just an inquisitive mind, this piece just wins people over, one way or another! Probably the best-known movement would be the second, Assez Vif, Très Rhythmé. After performing this recently as part of the Sydney Camerata String Quartet, a member of the audience commented that it was the most erotic piece of music she had encountered growing up. That’s not something you hear very often as a classical musician, but interesting and definitely appropriate, I think. I have fond memories of hearing this movement for the first time on an ABC Classic FM Life is Beautiful CD that came with the paper. The performers were the Australian String Quartet in their current configuration, and their rendition of the second movement stands today as one of the fastest that I’ve come across. Exciting, brilliant and funky is how I would describe this one! It wasn’t for at least a year that I got around to listening to other recordings of the work, only to…

Back in 1993 I saw the film The Piano, and was sort of irritated by it, even though I knew it was a piece of great filmmaking. Two things really bugged me: one, that they didn’t drag that expensive instrument about 12 yards farther up the beach; and secondly, why did Holly Hunter’s character Ada play music which was so modern for the film’s setting in 1850’s New Zealand? Everything else about the film was obviously historically correct – the costumes, the dwellings. Nyman’s music (whilst atmospheric and wonderful) stood out to me as totally anachronistic – as if Holly Hunter had been playing a modern Steinway D model, or Harvey Keitel had worn a T-shirt with an Adidas logo. Zoom forward to last week, when I was able to sit down with Michael Nyman and interview him as part of the Sydney Conservatorium’s 101 Compositions series. The Con has commissioned a number of well-known composers to write music leading up to the institution’s 100th Anniversary, and I have been asked over the next few years to interview the composers about their works and themselves. John Corigliano, Peter Sculthorpe, and Carl Vine are already in the bag, and it was…

A week or so ago, Opera Australia officially launched its latest venture, Opera on Sydney Harbour. The enigmatic tweets leading up to announcement did, I admit, have me expecting a bigger surprise — Lyndon Terracini and Kristin Keneally were both telling media about the so-called “floating opera” as early as November last year, so I had assumed the thing was well and truly launched — but this was the Absolutely Official Glitzy version of the announcement, complete with holograms for those lucky Sydneysiders invited to the launch party. We already knew that in March 2012, Emma Matthews would sing her first Violetta in a new, spectacular La traviata on Sydney Harbour, directed by Francesca Zambello. Now we know that the show will run for three weeks, that Emma will share her role with Rachelle Durkin in a cast also including Ji-Min Park and Gianluca Terranova as Alredo and Jonathan Summer and Warwick Fyfe as Papa Germont, that the naming sponsor is Dr Haruhisa Handa, whose International Foundation for Arts and Culture has long sponsored the Australian Singing Competition — and that there will be fireworks. During the Act I party, I believe; I hope those attracted to the harbour by…

So Arvo Pärt has won Composer of the Year at the 2011 Classic BRIT Awards, ahead of fellow nominees Eric Whitacre and Karl Jenkins. This shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise. Whitacre and Jenkins are fine composers, but Pärt, the 75-year-old Estonian, is regarded almost reverentially in parts of the British music community. And why not? England offers a multitude of choirs specialising in precise tuning and expressive restraint, and an abundance of remarkable acoustics in which they can perform – all of which is ideally suited to music written in Pärt’s signature style, tintinnabuli. An Englishman, Paul Hillier, has had a big hand in rendering Pärt’s works accessible to audiences outside the former USSR. (The University of Sydney gave Pärt an honorary doctorate some years ago, but still we don’t see much of his music performed in Australia – though Paul Stanhope and his Sydney Chamber Choir may yet have a thing or two more to say about that). However much Pärt is now part of the furniture in Britain, though, he was a late discovery for the musicians there, and in fact was barely known in the Isles before the mid-1980s. A flurry of activity,…

As we are fast approaching the end of the semester, the Con is abuzz with ensembles applying the finishing touches to their concert programs. As a member of the SCM Chamber Choir, next Monday will be the culmination of three months’ work. So, if you happen to be in Sydney, I encourage you to come along to Verbrugghen Hall for a great program of works by Victoria, Purcell, Britten et al. Here is a poster with the details (designed by one of our multi-talented sopranos, Tristan Hons): I’ve also been busy rehearsing with the big choir and symphony orchestra for another special event taking place at the Con next week. You may have read my interview with Michael Nyman in the March issue of Limelight. Nyman will be here for the world premiere of his newly commissioned work for orchestra and choir, Doing The Rounds. Again, Verbrugghen Hall will be the place to be next Friday night (with a repeat performance on Saturday afternoon). See here for details. Finally, I hope you picked up a copy of the June issue of Limelight (which hit stands on Wednesday). In it, you’ll find my first full-length feature in which I explore the…

The Met by night. Time flies. I’m not sure if it says anything about the cities themselves — or the use I made of them — that eight weeks in London seemed blissfully long, whereas eight weeks in New York flew by almost before I knew it. Or maybe I’m just getting into the swing of this vagabond lifestyle. In any case, here I am in Florida now, for two weeks of relaxation, regrouping and repacking, before we head off yet again, this time for a Parsifal in Zürich and a Wozzeck in Santa Fe. New York turned out to be wonderful. I say “turned out” because unlike London, it wasn’t a city I warmed to immediately. It grew on me, however, and it’s safe to say that the Met played a large part in that. I liked having one of the world’s great opera houses almost literally around the corner from me, I liked actually knowing first hand what all the gossips on Parterre were being snippy (or otherwise) about, and I liked how remarkably quickly I became accustomed to seeing opera’s biggest names on stage. And I did manage to see quite a few of them. Natalie Dessay,…

Links: Cambridge Union classical debate Library of Congress Jukebox

Sydney Camerata performed our all-Mozart program yesterday at the City Recital Hall to an audience of over 600. For an ensemble such as ours to play in a fine venue like this was a real treat. Rehearsals began only five days prior to the concert but parts were posted out to musicians months ago so that they could arrive at rehearsals prepared. We had a number of musicians fly from interstate including our concertmaster Liz Gormley and trumpeter Matthew Dempsey, who are both currently working with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. We were also joined by timpanist Brent Miller from Brisbane. What I imagined to be an ambitious program to put together over a weekend came together remarkably well. I attribute this to the preparation of the musicians and the excellent directorship from our concertmaster Liz Gormley. I might point out for those that haven’t seen us before, our ensemble performs without a conductor and instead is directed from the first violin. This presents a number of challenges including keeping together rhythmically and being aware of various entries. On the positive side however, performing without a conductor for us is a liberating experience and allows for a greater sense of awareness…

Opera Australia’s production by Gale Edwards of La bohème — reportedly the first new production initiated by incoming Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini — opened in Melbourne last month, to great critical and audience acclaim. Conductor Christian Badea was kind enough to answer a few questions about the experience, and about what has made La bohème so beloved of audiences for so long. La bohème is one of the best-known and most frequently performed and recorded operas in the repertoire. How do you go about keeping it fresh and exciting for audiences who may have heard it dozens of times? La bohème is one of those musical scores which have endured the test of time because they are so strong and true and they connect instantly with the audience. I always study the score like it is new every time I conduct it, trying to bring out all the details and the composer’s intentions, and I make sure that it relates to the theatrical production on stage. How do you find the balance between orchestra and singers in a piece which is so character-driven and intimate, but full of such lush orchestral writing? Has the challenging acoustic of the Melbourne Arts Centre affected your approach to the…